The Kelon team took a Japanese-made fridge to pieces to see how it worked, then reverse-engineered it.

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This problem is compounded by the fact that private firms and investors fear that energy technologies will be reverse-engineered and their value will be lost due to knowledge spill-over.

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And you certainly hear stories about lost technology because a product you were planning on unveiling at a trade show somehow someone reverse-engineered or trade secrets have been stolen.

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